Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (9 page)

A group of hares is called a
down
. (A group of hairs is called a
wig
.)

BIERCE-ISMS

Author and newspaper columnist Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) often peppered his articles with his own humorous—and cynical—definitions for common words. Here are a few of our favorites
.

D
entist:
A magician who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.

Positive:
Mistaken, at the top of one’s voice.

Acquaintance:
A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

Dog:
An additional Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world’s worship.

Clairvoyant:
A person who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron—namely, that he is a blockhead.

Revolution:
An abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

Corporation:
An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Admiration:
Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.

Saint:
A dead sinner, revised and edited.

Alliance:
The union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Responsibility:
A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck, or one’s neighbor.

Appeal:
In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

Coward:
One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.

Famous:
Conspicuously miserable.

Friendship:
A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.

Husband:
One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate.

Meekness:
Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worthwhile.

Outcome:
A particular type of disappointment.

Love:
A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

Geography fact: Brazil is larger than all 48 contiguous United States combined.

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

Life is constantly presenting us with interesting challenges. These challenges have many possible solutions…some good, some not so good, and some just plain bad. These belong in the third category
.

T
HE KEYS TO SUCCESS

Challenge:
A tourist at Montana’s Glacier National Park wanted to take a picture of a squirrel that had scurried away into its rocky den.

Bad Idea:
Trying to coax the animal out of its lair, the man dangled his only set of car keys in front of the opening.

Outcome
: The squirrel darted out, snatched the keys right out of the man’s hand, and disappeared back into the ground. Rangers tried to assist the frantic tourist, but the squirrel (and the keys) were nowhere to be found. The man had to call a locksmith out to the park and pay a hefty sum to get his car back on the road.

BACKFIRING BOOBY TRAP

Challenge:
A 66-year-old Dutchman had some very important “stuff” in his garden shed and was afraid someone would steal it.

Bad Idea:
Using some ropes, he devised a booby trap that hung a shotgun inside the door and set it to go off when the door was opened. Then he proudly opened the door to give his friends a demonstration.

Outcome
: The man was shot in the stomach by his own gun and needed emergency surgery. After he recovered, he went to jail. (Police discovered the “stuff” he was guarding: 15 full-grown marijuana plants.)

LIGHT ONE CANDLE

Challenge:
A 29-year-old St. Paul, Minnesota, man, identified only as Robert, wanted to clean the grit out of his bathtub.

Bad Idea:
He used gasoline to clean the tub, which left the bathroom smelling really bad. To mask the odor, Robert lit aromatic candles.

The cables on the Golden Gate Bridge contain 80,000 miles of steel wire.

Outcome
: Robert blew up his apartment. He sustained severe burns, but survived. (The apartment did not.)

DROVE MY CHEVY TO THE LEVEE

Challenge:
In 1993, 24-year-old James Scott lived on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. His wife worked on the Missouri side. All Scott wanted to do was “party,” but his wife wouldn’t let him.

Bad Idea:
Scott removed some sandbags from a nearby levee, hoping the river would wash out the road that his wife used to take home.

Outcome:
Not only did Scott wash out the road…he also flooded 14,000 acres, destroying crops as well as dozens of homes and businesses, and causing a local bridge to be closed for more than three months. After bragging about his “success” to his friends, Scott was arrested and sentenced to life in prison (the maximum penalty for “causing a catastrophe”).

IN NEED OF A LIFT

Challenge:
Somjet Korkeaw, a 42-year-old office worker from Bangkok, Thailand, was leaving work on a Saturday afternoon when he suddenly realized he’d forgotten something and had to return to his office on the 99th floor to get it. Unfortunately, the passenger elevators had already been turned off for the weekend and the stair doors were locked.

Bad Idea:
He decided to take a small cargo elevator (designed to carry food and documents). It was small, so he had to crouch into a ball to fit, but it was the only way back to the office.

Outcome:
Korkeaw weighed 150 pounds, far too heavy for the lift to carry. Result: It got stuck between floors. He had to wait, bent over and crammed inside the little box, for more than 40 hours until the building reopened on Monday morning.

SHELL SHOCK

Challenge:
A 19-year-old man from Spokane, Washington, wanted to make a necklace out of bullets. The only way to string the necklace together was to punch holes in the live ammunition.

Bad Idea:
He punched a hole in the live ammunition.

Outcome:
He survived the explosion, but will never play piano again.

First horror movie:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1908).

FALSE FRIENDS

What do you call English words that look or sound exactly like words in other languages, but have entirely different meanings? Linguists call them “false friends” because they can get you into trouble. A few examples:

Kill
(Mideast): Good friend

Fatal
(Germany): Annoying

Lawman
(Surinam): Lunatic

Sky
(Norway): Cloud

City
(Czech): Feelings

Slut
(Sweden): End

Alone
(Italy): Halo

Bless!
(Iceland): Goodbye!

Fart
(Turkey): Exaggerating

Bog
(Russia): God

Arse
(Turkey): Violin bow

Turd
(Iran): Fragile

Chew
(Ethiopia): Salt

Brat
(Russia): Brother

Dad
(Albania): Wet nurse

Blubber
(Netherlands): Mud

Babe
(Swaziland): Priest

Beast
(Iran): Twenty

Santa
(Mideast): Wart

After
(Germany): Anus

Made
(Netherlands): Maggot

Pasta
(Portugal): Briefcase

Bizarro
(Spain): Brave

Bank
(Netherlands): Bench

Pies
(Poland): Dog

Mama
(Georgia): Father

Kiss
(Sweden): Urine

Mist
(Germany): Manure

King
(Estonia): Shoe

Bean
(Ireland): Woman

Sex
(Sweden): Six

Billion
(France): Trillion

Travesty
(Greece): Transvestite

Big
(Netherlands): Piglet

Flint
(Sweden): Bald head

Ale
(Finland): Discount

Four
(France): Oven

Bimbo
(Japan): Poor person

Groin
(France): Snout

Helmet
(Finland): Pearls

Bra
(Sweden): Good

Air
(Indonesia): Water

Coin
(Scotland): Dogs

Cat
(Indonesia): Paint

Shh! The word “listen” contains the same letters as the word “silent”.

SNAKES ON A…

Get these @*%$*%& snakes off this @*%$*%& page!

B
ED

A woman in Leith, Scotland, was cleaning her bedroom when she went to remove her son’s toy snake from the bed. Only problem: It wasn’t a toy. The snake lunged at her, then slid under the sheets. The terrified woman jumped up on a chair and called her fiancé, who rushed home and was able to catch the two-foot-long reptile. It turned out to be be a harmless corn snake. They don’t know how it got into the bed.

…CAN

In 2005 a woman in Florida required three days in the hospital after she was bitten on the leg by a venomous snake…in her toilet. Alicia Bailey said the snake—which disappeared and was not recovered—was a water moccasin, and a large one. She also said the incident had a lasting impact. “We’re currently very uncomfortable in our home,” she said, “and toilet shy.”

…STATUE

A 16-foot-long albino king cobra was found wrapped around a statue of the the Hindu goddess Amman in a Malaysian temple in 2006. King cobras are incredibly fearsome: They can make a third of their body length vertical (meaning one this large could look eye-to-eye with a human) and can deliver enough venom to kill an elephant. But seeing one is a good omen in Hindu mythology, and over the next two days more than 30,000 people passed through the temple to see the snake, leaving offerings of milk and eggs. After two days in the temple, the snake slithered away, having injured no one.

…ALLIGATOR

In 2005 rangers in Florida’s Everglades National Park were stunned to find a 6-foot-long alligator protruding from the stomach of a 13-foot-long snake. Both were dead. The Burmese python had swallowed the alligator whole, and the alligator had then apparently tried to claw its way out—its tail and back legs protruded from the snake’s ruptured belly. Burmese pythons thrive in the Everglades, but they aren’t native; they started out as escaped pets. Scientists call the find “an ominous sign” that the non-native snakes could dangerously disrupt the area’s ecosystem by replacing the alligator as the top predator. But maybe not: The python’s head was missing, causing one biologist to surmise that another alligator may have come along and bitten it off.

First state to list its Web site on its license plate: Pennsylvania.

…CAT

Another Burmese python made the news in 2006, when Interlachen, Florida, resident Nicole Salvatore walked into a friend’s house. The friend wasn’t home, but a 12-foot-long python was… and it was eating her friend’s cat. The cat was dead by the time the owner, Dianne Turner, arrived home. Amazingly, Florida Fish and Wildlife officials advised Turner that she was not allowed to kill the snake. “All we could do was stand there and watch that snake eat the cat,” Salvatore said. The python had escaped from its outdoor pen in a neighbor’s yard. (The kitty’s name: Burrito.)

…YES, A PLANE

Pilot Monty Coles of West Virginia was about to land his Piper Cherokee in Ohio in 2006 when a snake stuck its head out of the instrument panel. Coles was 3,000 feet in the air at the time. He swatted at the four-foot-long snake, causing it to drop to the floor near his feet. As it started to slither away, Coles grabbed it behind its head. “It coiled all around my arm,” he said after landing, “and its tail grabbed hold of a lever on the floor and started pulling.” Coles radioed for permission to make an emergency landing: “They came back and asked what my problem was. I told them I had one hand full of snake and the other hand full of plane.” He added, “Nothing in any of the manuals ever described anything like this.”

*        *        *

TOUGH GUY

“Valentin Grimaldo, 40, was bitten by a venomous coral snake near Encino, Texas. He survived by biting the snake’s head off, slitting its body lengthwise, and using the skin for a tourniquet until help arrived.”

—News of the Weird

Paul McCartney wrote “When I’m 64” when he was 15.

STRANGE LAWSUITS

Think you can’t sue your neighbor just for being a jerk? These days it seems like people will sue each other over anything. Here are a few real-life examples
.

P
LAINTIFF:
Rena Young

DEFENDANT:
Taylor Ostergaard and Lindsey Zilletti, two 18-year-old girls

LAWSUIT:
One night in July 2005, Ostergaard and Zilletti baked plates of chocolate chip cookies and handed them out to their neighbors in Durango, Colorado. When they left the plate of cookies on Young’s doorstep and knocked on her door around 10:30 p.m., the woman became so terrified by “the shadowy figures who banged on her door” that she called the police. According to the cops, no crime had been committed, but Young was still agitated. She went to the hospital the next morning with what she thought was a heart attack (doctors said it was an anxiety attack). Ostergaard and Zilletti both wrote letters of apology, but Young sued them, claiming the apologies rang false.